


What Monsters Fear

by Oparu



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AC and May are like Skye's parents, F/M, background Philinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 22:06:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2286102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye has night terrors after Ward turns and May helps, or the one where she has a bad dream and ends up in bed with her 'parents'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Monsters Fear

People didn't just wake up screaming. That was a TV trope. It was for horror movies and bad dramas. When it happened to her, well, then it just felt stupid. Terror fades, sort of. It's more embarrassing than anything to stare up at May and know she woke her up. Especially considering she'd gone to bed early because she'd flown them all out here without taking a break. No autopilot when they need to hide. 

"Sorry."

May shakes her head. "What did you dream about?"

Skye pulls the blanket up. Tears stain it and she stares at her knees. Is she crying? Really? Screaming and crying and May's just sitting here on her bed. "Nothing."

May nods. "You don't have to talk about it."

She should, because May's being nice to her and it's stupid to lie, but the words just don't make sense. 

"Running," she starts, and talking does not make her feel like less of an idiot. "Then getting caught. Mike Petersen, Garrett--" and she stops. 

A hand, May's, runs over her shoulder, then her back and she was not going to cry. She's cried enough. It's over now, he's in prison and she should stop. Yet she can't tell her subconscious not to be afraid or how to be brave because they are all that's left of S.H.I.E.L.D. and she's kind of gotten used to being the hero. May slides closer on the bed, then she's around her, and none of it's right because she's crying on May's pyjamas and May was asleep and the Cavalry's not supposed to do nightmares. 

She's having another tantrum. She can't hold it in, she's such an idiot and she starts to apologise, over and over. She's not even sure what she's apologising for in the middle. Is it Ward? For trusting him? For wanting him dead? For not. For kissing him and hating him and not being able to hold herself together the way everyone else does. AC's nightmares don't wake up everyone in the base, and he has more valid reasons. May does, Fitz, everyone but her really has better reasons to wake up screaming, but she's the one who did. She's the one who can't stop crying and feels like- is- an idiot. 

Because she is an idiot. 

"When I came back from Bahrain, Coulson had my apartment soundproofed."

"What?"

May's t-shirt is all wet and Skye's realises slowly how damp her sheets are. Sweating, screaming and crying all seem to go together, and she's so tired she's shaky. 

"I refused to go back there. I had neighbours, ordinary people. He knew I'd been sleeping on base, in the barracks because everyone in the barracks sleeps like the dead."

"So you hid?"

"I had somewhere to hide. I was lucky." May touches her face, wiping her tears away. "Coulson thought it would be better if I went home."

Skye doesn't tell May that this is her home. Here, the Bus, the Playground, wherever they end up. 

"Was it?" Drying her face on the sheet, Skye sighs. 

"Not really." May's quiet and her hand rubs Skye's shoulder again. "In the barracks, I wasn't alone. There were other people. I wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep."

"So being home didn't help you?"

May touches her back again, then stands, offering Skye her hand. "My apartment wasn't home. Come on. You don't want to sleep here."

Together, they strip the bed and dump the sheets in the laundry room. Skye starts to grab new ones but May shakes her head and offers her hand. Confused, but too tired to argue, Skye follows her down the hall. Maybe there's some spare room she doesn't know about. 

The door they open is into May's room, which she doesn't realise until she sees the sunglasses on the desk and the painting on the wall. AC said that May loves colour, even though she never wears it. 

Skye just stares at her, even more confused. 

"I went home," May says. "All the way home. I slept in my mother's bed like I was a little girl."

"I never--"

May nods, sitting down on the bed and patting it. "I know. My mother's not the easiest person to live with. She's strict, demanding. She has very high standards. But when I'm afraid, she's always there. She picks up the phone, and sometimes I forget to thank her and she gives me this look." She yawns. "It's not a real solution. Coulson knows people you can talk to. Maybe we should all talk to someone. We lost part of our family. He turned on us. That's not easy to get over." 

"I never had a mother." Skye stops, correcting herself. "I have one, somewhere, I just don't know where she is, so she hasn't really been motherly."

May reaches into her drawer and pulls out a t-shirt that she hands to Skye. It's S.H.I.E.L.D. standard issue. The kind of uniform Skye's never really had. She trades it for her own sweaty tanktop, turning to face the wall as she changes. It's too big and Skye can't believe it's the kind of t-shirt May would wear, but maybe she borrowed it from someone, or likes to sleep in them when they're baggy. She has that post crying headache and she's too tired to wonder why it seems like a guy's shirt. 

"I'm sorry." May rubs her shoulder again, then slides over on the bed. She switches off the light and Skye stands there in the dark, staring at the bed, wishing she had figured out exactly what May expects her to do. 

For a moment, she thinks she should resist, insist that she's an adult, but she's not. She's really not, especially not right now. She crawls into bed next to May, who's put herself between Skye and the door, because she would. She'd do that. 

Lying on her back, May stares up at the ceiling while Skye curls on her side. May's breathing is slow and regular almost as soon as she lies down. She's jealous because her own breathing won't slow down. She can't make herself calm. Not the way May does. Maybe it's a tai chi thing. 

May rolls towards her, and her hand returns to Skye's back, warm through her shirt. "My mom has always been good at chasing away monsters. She'd scare them out of my closet when I was young and remind me that they couldn't take all of me when I was older and they were bigger." 

"How big do they get?"

May, the ninja pilot, curls up around Skye's back as if they're best friends at a sleepover, or if she was Skye's mom, chasing monsters. 

"Big."

"With teeth and claws?"

"Teeth like knives and claws like spearpoints," May replies. Her voice sounds lighter, almost happy. She jokes. AC swears she does. She's also warm, and there's something about her being there that's comforting. "Thick shaggy fur, and scales that clatter. Big eyes that glow in the dark like embers."

"What are they afraid of?" Skye takes the hand on her stomach and hugs it close. 

"Simmons talking in her sleep," May murmurs just behind Skye's head. "Fitz snoring. The way Coulson lays out his suit before he goes to bed. Trip doing push-ups before he gets under the blankets. You, smiling."

"I think everything evil should be afraid of you smiling, not me."

May strokes her hair. "I guess you haven't seen your smile."

Gentle fingers run over the back of her hair until she falls asleep. Maybe it's the scent that keeps her calm because she knows May's there, even with her eyes shut. Skye can't remember her dreams, but they're quiet, softer. Someone pats her shoulder when she starts to dream of horrors once again, and it's quiet.

When she wakes, finally, sun streams warm from the window, falling golden onto a navy blue suit laid out on the chair next to the bed. The tie's folded, so is the shirt. She knows that suit and it's not May's. There's still an arm around her stomach, and that does belong to May, but there's a larger hand on top of it. 

AC's hand. 

He sleeps here too. Maybe they take turns and sometimes she's with him in his bed, but he's here. They're all wrapped up together, and she's on the edge, listening to them breathing in union. 

She's like a little kid, sleeping with her parents after a nightmare. She's never had that. She's never been close enough to any of her foster parents to find them comforting. They're not her parents, but they make her safe. She wraps her fingers around AC's larger ones, and winds her other hand into May's. She'll have to get up because they all have work to do, but there's something right about the two of them together. They must keep each other going, prop each other up. 

AC will probably be gone later, when she really wakes up. Maybe she's not even supposed to know that he's here. He is, and that's kind of awesome. AC's watch by the side of the bed says it's still too early for tai chi, so she shuts her eyes and listens to the two of them breathing. They're not her parents, and maybe tomorrow this will be weird. 

Right now it's safe, and all the monsters are quiet. She'll take that. She thinks they will too.


End file.
